TOPIC GUIDE: Planning for Sustainable and Inclusive Cities in the Global South Alison Brown March 2015 About Evidence on Demand and Professional Development Evidence on Demand supports the professional development of Climate, Environment, Infrastructure and Livelihoods Advisers at DFID. Technical Competency Frameworks for the advisory groups guide the support provided. Evidence on Demand also supports cross-cutting or development competencies which cover areas of technical knowledge and skills needed by advisers to effectively deploy their core technical skills and knowledge in development policy and operations. The Evidence on Demand team is led by a DAI (which incorporates HTSPE Limited) and IMC Worldwide Limited Joint Venture. Both firms are established development consultancies with considerable experience in managing resource centres. The Joint Venture is backed by a core consortium of specialist organisations. The consortium provides technical support for developing quality assured resources, answering helpdesk enquiries and supporting consultancy services. Please go to the Evidence on Demand website (www.evidenceondemand.info) for further details. Disclaimer This Topic Guide has been produced by Evidence on Demand with the assistance of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) contracted through the Climate, Environment, Infrastructure and Livelihoods Professional Evidence and Applied Knowledge Services (CEIL PEAKS) programme, jointly managed by DAI (which incorporates HTSPE Limited) and IMC Worldwide Limited. The views expressed in the Topic Guide are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily represent DFID’s own views or policies, or those of Evidence on Demand. Comments and discussion on items related to content and opinion should be addressed to the author, via [email protected]. Your feedback helps us ensure the quality and usefulness of all knowledge products. Please email [email protected] and let us know whether or not you have found this material useful; in what ways it has helped build your knowledge base and informed your work; or how it could be improved. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12774/eod_tg.march2015.browna First published March 2015 © CROWN COPYRIGHT Contents Topic Guides iv Summary of key points v 1. Introduction 1 2. City contexts 2 2.1 Urbanisation and the challenge of small towns 2 2.2 History and legacy 4 2.3 Urban governance 4 2.4 Urban land 7 Urbanisation – implications for practice 8 3. Informal cities 9 3.1 Defining urban informality 9 3.2 Informal settlements and housing 9 3.3 Housing policy 12 3.4 Informal economies 15 Informal cities – implications for practice 18 4. Spatial planning 19 4.1 Urban planning – evolution 19 4.2 Formal planning processes – issues and concepts 20 4.3 Strategic planning 23 4.4 Development management 25 4.5 Action planning 25 4.6 Planning tools 26 4.7 Emerging challenges and responses 28 Spatial planning - implications for practice 30 5. Inclusion in cities 32 5.1 Equity and inclusion in cities 32 5.2 Dimensions of inclusion/exclusion 32 5.3 Rights-based urban planning approaches 35 5.4 Slum upgrading 37 5.5 Planning in fragile cities 41 Inclusion in cities - implications for practice 41 6. Planning for sustainable cities 43 6.1 Sustainable development and sustainable cities 43 6.2 Urban resource systems – food, energy and water 44 i 6.3 Risk, resilience and climate change 46 6.4 Fostering sustainable cities 47 6.5 Technology 50 Planning for sustainable cities - implications for practice 51 LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Population estimates, projections (billions) and annual growth rates (%) 2 Table 2.2: Percentage urban by region (Derived from: UNDESA, 2014, pp24–29) © United Nations 2 Table 2.3: Proportion (%) of the population, [Derived from UNDESA, 2012 (medium fertility)] 4 Table 3.1: Proportion (%) of urban population living in slums (Source: UNH 2013: 151) © UN-Habitat 11 Table 3.2: UN-Habitat thresholds for defining slum settlements (UNH, 2003, p12) 12 Table 4.1: Typology of participation in planning (Source: based on UNH, 2009b, p94) © UN-Habitat 22 Table 6.1: Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) indicators potentially applicable to sustainable urban development, Source: UNDESA, 2007, pp10–14 44 Table 6.21: Use of technology in urban planning 50 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Total world urban population (m) by city size 3 Figure 2.2: Actors and institutions of urban governance 5 Figure 3.1: Potential consequences of giving squatters title (Source: Author) 14 Figure 3.2: Informal employment as a proportion (%) of non-agricultural employment in eight African cities (Source: Herrera et al., 2011, p15) 16 Figure 4.1: Source: Federal Department of Town and Country Planning, Malaysia (2010) "2nd National Physical Plan", p4.7 © Government of Malaysia 21 Figure 4.2: Transferrable development rights 27 Figure 4.3: Financing instruments (UNH 2009a: 18) © UN-Habitat 29 Figure 5.1: Female school drop-out due to pregnancy and early marriage, slum and non-slum population (Source UNH, 2013a, p47) © UN-Habitat 33 LIST OF BOXES Box 3.1 The work of Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT) on securing services for slum communities 10 Box 4.1 Urban planning in South Africa 20 Box 4.2 Participatory budgeting, Porto Alegre, and public finance in India 23 Box 5.1 Cross-border migration in southern Africa 34 Box 5.2 The Right to the City in Brazil 36 Box 5.3 Core components of slum upgrading 37 Box 5.4 Sri Lanka's Million Houses Programme 38 Box 5.5 Rio de Janeiro’s Favela-Bairro programme 39 Box 5.6 Orangi Pilot Project 40 Box 5.7 CLIFF (Community Led Infrastructure Finance Facility) 40 ii Box 5.8 The Metrocable in Medellín, Colombia 41 Box 6.1 Belo Horizonte's alternative food system – feeding the city and urban planning 45 Box 6.2 Climate change adaptation in Mexico City 47 Box 6.3 Curitiba 49 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1: Glossary 52 Appendix 2: References 57 iii Topic Guides Welcome to the Evidence on Demand series of Topic Guides. The guides are being produced for Climate, Environment, Infrastructure and Livelihoods Advisers in the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The purpose of the Topic Guides is to provide resources to support professional development. Each Topic Guide is written by an expert in the field. Topic guides: • Provide an overview of a topic • Present the issues and arguments relating to a topic • Are illustrated with examples and case studies • Stimulate thinking and questioning • Provide links to current best ‘reads’ in an annotated reading list • Provide signposts to detailed evidence and further information • Provide a glossary of terms for a topic. About this Topic Guide This Topic Guide, Planning for Sustainable and Inclusive Cities in the Global South, explores the poverty and environmental challenges facing cities of the global South, and current thinking on how urban planning and management of the built and natural environment can be harnessed to address these challenges. The Topic Guide is written for DFID staff, but is relevant to all development professionals. It is suitable for both non-experts and experts on urban planning. The aim of the guide is to provide information to enable development professionals to take practical steps in their day-to-day work, and highlight sources of further information. The objectives are to enable advisers to: • be better able to influence policy and decision makers for impact on poverty reduction; • examine the challenges of urbanisation and principles of sustainable and inclusive urban planning; • indicate how these principles can be integrated across sectors to promote sustainable urban development and poverty reduction; • understand the nuances of working in low-income cities, informal urban contexts and fragile situations; • highlight where donors can contribute in engaging with governments, the private sector and civil society on urbanisation. The central message of this Topic Guide is that urban planning has the potential to bridge urban divides, but only if interventions are locally-appropriate and pro-poor in intent, and if local governance is equitable and transparent. The challenges addressed in this Topic Guide are that problems are most acute where capacity to manage urban change is least effective, and that planning interventions tend to favour elites and disadvantage the poor. These challenges mean reconceptualising interventions to address social need, build local government capacity, ensure open and participatory processes, protect sensitive environments and focus resources on areas of most need. About the author This Topic Guide has been written by lead author, Alison Brown, Professor of Urban Planning and International Development at Cardiff University, with guidance from DFID staff, particularly Simon Ratcliffe, and Abhijit Ray. The Topic Guide has also benefited from reviews by Professor Yap Kioe Sheng, and inputs from PhD students at Cardiff, Gayle Wootton and Saeed Ud Din Ahmed. The views expressed here are those of the author and not DFID or Cardiff University. iv Summary of key points Managing urban growth has become one of the most important challenges of the 21st century. In cities with transparent governance and effective legislation, urban planning can be a creative tool for fostering regeneration or directing urban growth. However, some of the most acute challenges of rapid growth – poverty, environmental pollution and risk – occur in the poorest and most fragile states, especially in sub- Saharan Africa and South Asia, where innovative problem-solving is required. The philosophy of planning sustainable and inclusive cities integrates the principles of sustainable development (e.g. resource and energy conservation and environmental improvement) with those of social inclusion (e.g. reducing poverty and improving access to housing and urban services). Urban planning interventions need to be fit for purpose, based on a sound understanding of the local environment, politics and economics, with a recognition of contextual and capacity limitations, and the degree of political willingness to intervene.